ONLY WANTS A LITTLE (Dagsavisen)

So far the Labour Party has almost eliminated its own tax profile in the budget. Today the party continues the negotiations that are intended to ensure that Mr Stoltenberg remains prime minister. After around an hour’s negotiations yesterday evening the leaders of both the Labour Party and the centre alliance parties emerged from the conference room where they had been meeting. The Labour Party has accepted all the centre parties’ demands so far, so the negotiating will continue. Today they will start discussing who is going to pay for it all.

CALLS FOR NEW TAX SYSTEM (Verdens Gang)

Just after 11 o’clock last night the centre alliance parties handed the Labour Party negotiators a secret budget memo calling for the Government to initiate a complete overhaul of the Norwegian tax system. The centre alliance parties are demanding a broad-based agreement on a new tax system that will come into effect in time for the 2002 budget.

COHABITATION MAY BE GIVEN SAME TAX STATUS AS MARRIAGE (NTB)

The Government is working out the details of a proposal that will place cohabiting couples in the same tax bracket as married couples. Today cohabiting couples where one of the parties has a child to support pay a higher tax rate than they would have done had they been married. The 340,000 cohabiting couples in this country may now benefit from an improved tax situation. The majority of those who have commented on the proposal, which has been widely circulated, are in favour of equal tax status for cohabitees and married couples.

CRIMINAL ASYLUM-SEEKERS SHOULD BE IMPRISONED (Dagsavisen)

The Norwegian People’s Relief Organization are calling for the police to keep criminal asylum-seekers locked up until their applications are finally processed. So far this year 40 criminals have been deported. "A small group of asylum-seekers has been using the refugee reception centres as a base for organized crime," says Ole Morten Lyng from the relief organization’s reception centre at Lysaker. Criminal activity carried out by residents is also on the rise at other reception centres around the country.

NOK 58 BILLION IN BUDGET OVERRUNS (Aftenposten)

Seventeen out of 32 Government-approved investment projects carried out in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea have had budget overruns of more than 20 per cent. According to information gathered by the Office of the Auditor General the total budget overruns for the 32 projects amount to a dizzying NOK 58 billion. Several of the items detailed in the report reflect badly on the political management of the Norwegian oil sector during the nineties, and parts of the report make embarrassing reading for Statoil.

LENT RØKKE NOK 650 MILLION (Dagens Næringsliv)

A new Orkla scandal is brewing. Orkla’s management, led by chief executive Jens P. Heyerdahl, went behind the board of directors’ back and lent NOK 650 million to Norway Seafoods Holding, a company controlled by Kjell Inge Røkke. Orkla’s new chairman Finn A. Hvistendahl has decided to take a closer look at the deal.

NOK 100,000,000,000 (Verdens Gang)

Petroleum and Energy Minister Olav Akselsen has quite a Christmas present for Statoil: State Direct Financial Interests (SDFI) to the tune of at least NOK 100 billion. The state-owned oil company will have its value pumped up twofold before its launch on the stock market. Following the Labour Party Conference’s green light for partial privatization last weekend, the Government’s petroleum report will probably be presented to the Storting 8 December.

WORTH NOTING

1. VAT on food to be halved, the proposed business-cycle tax to be dropped altogether and investment tax to be abolished by the end of next year. This is the basis for further budget negotiations. (Aftenposten)
2. Yesterday the Labour Party agreed to adjust the budget by a total of almost NOK 20 billion – a new Norwegian record in amendments to a proposed budget. (Verdens Gang)
3. The Norwegian Medical Association will today vote to accept or reject the proposed primary GP scheme. Vice President Hans Kristian Bakke expects the association to support the scheme. (Nationen)
4. Neither the then Government nor Petroleum and Energy Minister Jens Stoltenberg should have agreed to the development of the Åsgard oil field in 1996. The Office of the Auditor General concludes that the cost estimates were inadequate and established procedures were probably not followed. (Dagens Næringsliv)
5. The Norwegian Postal Administration has dropped its plan to set up ballot boxes at Shell petrol stations during next year’s general elections. In addition, voting will take place at fewer shops than originally planned. (Nationen)
6. The Government has decided to create a Holocaust Centre at Villa Grande, in Oslo’s Bygdøy suburb. Neo-nazi undercurrents among today’s youth have prompted Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg to support a centre of this kind. (Vårt Land)
7. According to a comprehensive survey of cut-price shops and retail chains to find who has the lowest prices on food, a number of supposedly cut-price grocery chains were decisively beaten by Smart Club and Rema 1000. The most expensive of all was ICA. (Aftenposten)
8. The month of October was close to being the darkest in Oslo since the Norwegian Meteorological Institute started measuring sunshine levels in 1952. The capital city has had fewer hours of sunshine only once since 1952.

TODAY’S COMMENT FROM AFTENPOSTEN

It is a battle that has finally been won. Both our former and current prime ministers have reached agreement that Villa Grande in Bygdøy should be turned into a centre for the study and documentation of the extermination of Jews and other " unwanted and inferior" races during the second world war. This agreement seems likely to also result in a budget compromise on the issue. It is not a large sum, but it may prove to be one of the most important investments for coming generations. It is particularly symbolic that Vidkun Quisling’s house should be used as a holocaust centre, because the ideology of Der Führer, with the most dreadful reprisals meted out on those who thought differently, was built on intolerance and cost millions of human lives. Quisling was part of that ideology, and contributed to making it an area of study for which there is no statute of limitations.

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